Latest / Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast / #20240407 - The Opportunity of Adversity - Exodus 6:1-13

Transcript

#20240407 - The Opportunity of Adversity - Exodus 6:1-13 · Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast

0:05
Welcome to the Study of God's Word, recorded live at Calvary
0:09
Church in Aurora, Co To learn more about the many resources
0:13
available through Abounding Grace Media or to tune into our
0:16
live stream services, visit us online at Calvary Co dot Church
0:21
or download our free Calvary Church app.
0:25
Now let's open our Bibles and study God's Word.
0:30
Amen. The title of our study today is
0:34
called The Opportunity of Adversity.
0:38
Now, it has been said that a person's true nature is revealed
0:43
at times of their greatest adversity.
0:46
When everything goes wrong, that's when the real you shows
0:50
up. And we've all experienced this
0:53
in some way, shape, or form, whether we are experiencing
0:57
adversity because of choices that we've made or we're
0:59
experiencing adversity because of something that is completely
1:02
out of our control. The one thing that we have in
1:06
common, though, is that regardless of where your
1:09
adversity comes from, what's important is how we respond to
1:14
it. Why?
1:17
Because adversity always presents us with a revelation
1:21
and a choice, the revelation of adversities, that it expresses
1:26
what you really believe is true. That's what comes out and
1:31
seasons of adversity, what you really believe shows up.
1:35
Even if you call yourself a believer and you've been a
1:38
Christian for a long time. When you hit times where
1:41
everything is falling apart, what you really believe to be
1:44
true will show up. Oh, I hold the word of God.
1:47
I believe the word of God and God is my rock.
1:50
We'll see, right? You enter into a season where
1:54
God really is all that you have and you learn God.
1:56
You are a firm foundation. But we don't find that out until
2:00
we go through seasons of everybody.
2:02
Say it with me. Adversity.
2:06
The second thing that adversity presents us with is a choice,
2:09
and that choice is what we choose to do when we experience
2:12
a set back in life. This is especially true when it
2:17
comes to our walk with the Lord, because God will sometimes allow
2:22
adversity into your life to reveal what's really in your
2:28
heart or to expose destructive patterns in your life or
2:33
destructive things that you run to as an escape in your life.
2:39
That frustrates me sometimes. Many times, if I'm honest with
2:42
you, I'm like God. Why wouldn't you?
2:45
Why would you allow adversity into my life?
2:49
Why can't it be that when you come to know Jesus, all of a
2:51
sudden life is just good roses and rainbows?
2:55
You don't have an issue ever. But often times, as you many of
3:00
you know, when you give your life to Jesus, life gets harder.
3:09
And some of you are like last time I heard a preacher talk,
3:11
they said it was going to get easier and it just got harder.
3:16
But here's the thing. James talks about this.
3:20
He says do not be surprised when you enter into seasons of
3:23
adversity. Why?
3:25
Because God uses those things to craft something in you.
3:30
And many of us this morning are running away from the crafting
3:34
that God wants to do in you. You sit here this morning and
3:36
go, God. I want to be used by you.
3:38
God, I want to have a purpose. God, I want to have a calling.
3:41
God I want to live for more than just what the American dream.
3:44
If that's true, then allow God to put you into the furnace.
3:50
Oh, I'm talking to somebody because we want to be used, but
3:54
we don't want the flames. We want to be fashioned, but we
3:57
don't want the fire. We want to be purified, but we
4:00
don't want the process. If you want to be used by God,
4:05
you have to go through the flame.
4:07
You have to go through the test of adversity.
4:11
But the blessing of the test of adversity is exactly what we see
4:15
with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
4:18
Because they stood in the flames, but they were not
4:20
burned. They stood in the midst of the
4:23
fire and their clothes were not scorched.
4:25
When they exited the fire, they didn't even smell like smoke.
4:30
That is what happens when you allow God to take you and to put
4:33
you into a season of adversity. Will it be uncomfortable?
4:35
Absolutely. But when you come out on the
4:38
other side of that, you will be fashioned into a weapon for
4:42
heaven. You will be fashioned into the
4:44
person that God is calling you to be.
4:46
You will be a weapon against the enemy.
4:50
And what's even greater is that you will be able to help those
4:53
who go into that same flame. It's a whole nother mindset that
4:57
we have as believers when we think about adversity and what
5:03
One of the things that I'm learning is that God loves to
5:05
respond to adversity. In fact, scripture is filled
5:11
with all kinds of examples of God responding to the adversity
5:14
that his people go through as they trust him in hard times.
5:19
But unfortunately, one of the things that I've especially
5:21
found in my life and what I've seen often in the lives of
5:23
others is that when we go through hard times, trusting God
5:27
is usually not our first option. I know for me it's not.
5:34
I usually end up complaining God, why?
5:39
How come? Lord, I thought this was
5:42
supposed to be great. I thought this was supposed to
5:43
work. I thought this was supposed to
5:44
be easy. I end up complaining.
5:51
Now understand this, that anytime when you enter into a
5:53
season of adversity and your and you begin to complain.
5:57
And I'm not trying to make light of the seasons of adversity.
6:00
I'm not trying to make light of the hard times.
6:02
But I am saying that from personal experience, when you go
6:05
through hard times and you're up, your first option is
6:08
complaining. You will usually end up
6:11
apologizing later. Because what happens is that God
6:17
always comes through. And one of the things that I
6:20
found to be true in my own life is that when I complain in
6:23
seasons of adversity, here's what I found.
6:27
It doesn't produce any life in you when you're sitting there
6:32
mad at God, screaming at God or cussing at God, whatever it may
6:36
be. Let's just be honest with it.
6:40
It doesn't produce any life. It doesn't produce any
6:43
understanding. But the seasons of my life where
6:47
I've gone through adversity and I've said God, I don't
6:49
understand. I don't know why, I don't know
6:51
how. I don't know how to solve this.
6:54
But I trust you. That's where we find what it
6:59
says in the Book of Philippians, that you have a peace that
7:01
surpasses all understanding. That's where we find joy.
7:05
In the midst of everything falling apart, you still have a
7:09
smile on your face. Not because things are working
7:12
out, but because you trust the God who is still in control over
7:16
everything on planet Earth. That's where the joy comes from.
7:20
It's not by allowing yourself to sink into this whole of
7:23
complaining and despair, but it's saying, God, I'm standing
7:26
on the firm foundation of your word.
7:28
I'm standing on the firm foundation of your promises.
7:30
I'm standing on the firm foundation that you love me,
7:32
that you care for me, that you're going to see me through
7:35
this. That all things are going to
7:37
work out for those who love you and trust you.
7:43
God loves to respond to adversity.
7:48
But I will say this, he responds in his time as the only caveat
7:53
to all of this. It's always in His timing.
7:57
It's usually not in our timing, but it will be in his timing.
8:01
But what I can promise you is that he will show up.
8:08
And the reason why God loves to show up in seasons of adversity
8:11
is because it's his opportunity to show us more about who he
8:14
really is. And so in our time today I'm
8:18
going to talk about how we can view our the adversity in our
8:20
lives as an opportunity to know more about God as we look at
8:25
Exodus chapter 6 verses one through 13.
8:31
So our main points are going to be the first one is adversity
8:35
reveals his character, the 2nd is that adversity reaffirms his
8:39
faithfulness. And the third is that adversity
8:41
shows us his power. Now the context of Exodus
8:46
chapter 6 is that Moses is coming back from a set back.
8:51
He's coming back from his first failed attempt at getting
8:54
Pharaoh to let his people, the Hebrews go.
8:58
In fact, this is something that God told Moses to do.
9:01
God told Moses, hey, I'm going to make you the deliverer of my
9:03
people who have been enslaved for over 400 years.
9:06
I'm going to send you to Pharaoh.
9:07
You're going to tell him to let my people go.
9:11
And Moses like, OK, I'll go and he goes, and he says, Pharaoh,
9:18
you need to let God's people go. And Pharaoh's like, no, ain't
9:23
gonna happen. And as a result of Pharaoh's
9:28
refusal, Moses is experiencing some intense adversity.
9:34
The reason why he's experiencing this adversity is because after
9:37
Pharaoh said no, he made life a whole lot harder for the Hebrews
9:42
in Egypt. And even the Hebrews themselves
9:46
no longer supported Moses and his plan for freedom.
9:52
This left Moses very frustrated and discouraged and he went to
9:55
the Lord and complained and he said, Lord, why have you brought
10:00
this trouble on these people? Why is it you have sent me for
10:05
since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name?
10:07
He has done evil to these people.
10:08
Neither of you delivered your people at all.
10:16
That's what Moses said to God. And here's how God responded.
10:21
Look with me at verses one through 4 of Exodus 6.
10:26
It says. Then Moses.
10:27
Then the Lord said to Moses. Now you shall see what I will do
10:31
to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will
10:34
let them go, and with a strong hand he will deliver them out of
10:36
his land. And God spoke to Moses and said
10:39
to him, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac,
10:44
and to Jacob as God Almighty. But by my name Lord, I was not
10:48
known to them. For I have also established my
10:51
covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of
10:54
their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.
10:59
This brings us to our first point, which is, which is
11:01
Adversity reveals his character. You see, God responds to Moses
11:08
discouragement by showing him, by telling him that this set
11:11
back was actually a set up for what God wanted to do.
11:16
But Moses couldn't see that. And many times in the same way
11:21
for us, when we go through setbacks in our lives, we
11:24
respond like Moses where we're like God.
11:27
I can't see this. I can't see the good in this.
11:32
This is especially true if God is calling you to do something.
11:38
Maybe you've been there before, where God gives you a passion to
11:42
do something. He puts something on your heart
11:44
to do. He calls you out to do something
11:46
specific and and and you've get the courage to step out in faith
11:50
and to do what he's calling you to do.
11:54
But instead of being met with success, you're met with
11:58
adversity. You're met with a set back.
12:01
And then you begin to think. You'd begin to ask yourself, did
12:04
I make the right choice in doing this?
12:07
Did I really hear that from God? Was that really God, or was that
12:12
the pizza I had last night? Was that really him?
12:22
Like Moses, we have to understand that when God calls
12:26
you to do something, it doesn't mean that you won't experience
12:29
bumps in the road. Because the truth is, is that
12:33
anything meaningful that you want to do for the Lord in this
12:35
life, it will always experience, you will always face adversity.
12:42
If you're seeking to do anything for the Lord, you're going to
12:44
face some adversity. This is even true when it comes
12:48
to our personal lives, when we're seeking to walk in
12:50
obedience to the Lord. For example, in Psalm 119, verse
12:54
nine, it says how can a young man cleanse his way?
12:58
It says by taking heed according to your word.
13:02
Now, if you just glance at this scripture, you could assume that
13:05
cleansing your way seems really simple.
13:09
But what we can miss is that cleansing your way actually
13:12
means this. It means that we have to unlearn
13:16
destructive patterns by applying God's word to our lives.
13:20
That's what cleansing your way means.
13:24
Now, if you seek to do that, if you seek to cleanse your way and
13:27
walk in obedience to the Word of God, you're going to be met with
13:30
adversity from your flesh because your flesh is going to
13:34
push back and say, no, I'm the one in charge here, and that's
13:39
where we have to respond and say, no, I'm not subject to you.
13:43
You're subject to me as I follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
13:49
But our flesh resists. So the point that I'm making
13:54
there is that adversity doesn't always mean that you're doing
13:57
something wrong. In fact, sometimes it's
14:02
confirmation that you're doing something right.
14:06
And as we see in our text today, Moses was doing something right.
14:11
He was doing the right thing, and God was seeking here to
14:15
encourage him. And as he encouraged him, he
14:18
reminded him that he is the same God who appeared to his great
14:21
ancestors. But then God says something
14:25
really interesting. In verse 3 He says I appear to
14:28
Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name
14:32
Lord I was not known to them. Now I understand why this is
14:37
significant. We have to look at the Hebrew
14:38
language because the term God Almighty in Hebrew is El
14:42
Shaddai, and it means that God has all power to create, provide
14:46
and to sustain. And up until this time, that's
14:50
all that the Hebrews knew about God.
14:52
They knew he had all power. He knew that he could provide,
14:55
and they knew that he made them a promise that he was going to
14:57
bring them to this new land in Canaan.
15:00
That's all that they knew. But when God says that, they
15:05
don't know me as Lord. The term Lord here isn't the
15:08
same as El Shaddai, but it's the Hebrew word for Yahweh or
15:11
Jehovah. And the name Yahweh is called
15:15
the covenant keeping name of God.
15:19
In other words, God is telling his people, you knew me as the
15:23
God who made the promise, but now you're going to know me as
15:26
the God who keeps his promises. And in this moment God is
15:33
introducing a new aspect of his character to his people.
15:37
But I need you to catch this, Understand this that the Hebrew
15:41
people wouldn't have known this about God if it wasn't for this
15:45
moment of adversity. If it wasn't for the adversity
15:49
that they were facing in this moment, they wouldn't have known
15:52
this about God. And one of the things that I
15:54
find to be so true is that the things that we don't know about
15:57
God, we actually find out. In seasons of adversity.
16:02
Many of us who have trusted the Lord found out that he is a
16:05
provider because we went through seasons where all we had was
16:09
Jesus and he came through. Many of us know that he's a
16:13
protector, that he's a healer because we went through seasons
16:16
where we had nothing but Jesus and he came through for us.
16:20
That's how we figure that out. But you wouldn't know that about
16:23
God if you didn't go through a season that was difficult.
16:27
And many times as Christians, we always want to remain on the
16:30
mountaintop with God. We want to remain in the the
16:33
experience where there's tears running down your face and
16:35
you're just, oh man, I love you, God.
16:37
I love you God. Oh man, I love you God.
16:40
There's nothing wrong with the mountaintop, but when we look,
16:44
as I've heard it said before, that nothing grows on the
16:47
mountaintop. You can go to a mountaintop, any
16:50
mountaintop that we have here in Colorado Springs, and there's
16:52
not much growing up there. But where the soil is rich and
16:57
where things grow is in the valley.
17:03
Some of us need to allow the Lord to take us into the valley.
17:09
You want to grow in your walk with God.
17:12
Allow him to take you to the valley.
17:15
The valley is where the soil is rich.
17:17
The valley is where things are dispersed, nutrients are
17:20
dispersed. And that's when things grow, is
17:22
when you go through the valley. This is how David was able to
17:25
say, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
17:29
will fear no evil. Why?
17:32
For your rod and your staff. They come from me.
17:34
You are with me in the valley. David wouldn't have known that
17:38
if he never got a chance to walk through the valley.
17:41
You and I wouldn't know that God is a healer or provider a
17:43
sustainer if we had never gone through the valley.
17:49
There's nothing wrong with the mountaintop, but if your goal is
17:53
to stay at the mountaintop where you just feel so, oh, I feel so
17:56
good and my feelings are hitting, oh man, it's great.
18:00
That's really going to stunt your growth as a believer.
18:04
You've got to go into the valley to grow.
18:08
That's where character is produced.
18:11
That's where faith is developed. And let me just tell you, when
18:14
we talk about developing faith, faith is rarely about how you
18:18
feel. It's rarely about how you feel.
18:23
Faith is about saying this is what this book says about God,
18:28
and I'm going to believe it. That's faith.
18:34
It's rarely about. Oh man, I need all my
18:35
circumstances to work out. I need everything to be as it
18:38
is. No, no, no.
18:39
Faith is saying God, you set it here.
18:41
So I'm going to believe it in my heart and in my mind.
18:45
And when the enemy comes and tries to say, you know, God
18:47
really doesn't care about you, I'm raising what we call in
18:50
Ephesians 6, the shield of faith, and I'm saying, no, he
18:54
does. He died on the cross over 2000
18:56
years ago and he didn't do that to ignore me.
18:57
He didn't do that to put me away.
18:59
He did that because he loves me and he's present with me in the
19:01
valley that I'm facing right here right now.
19:11
That's who our God is, in fact. Another example of this is in
19:17
Genesis chapter 16. We see a woman who was named
19:20
Hagar who is facing a difficult situation because of Abraham's
19:23
wife Sarah. She was being treated unfairly
19:26
and as a result she had to flee from them and she had to flee
19:29
into the desert and she had no way of surviving.
19:33
And she was also pregnant at the time as well.
19:37
And she was eventually going to die out there if nobody came to
19:40
her aid. And in that moment God came to
19:44
her aid in the desert and saved her life.
19:50
And after, after God had saved her life in the desert, Hagar
19:54
said this about God. She said you are the God who
19:58
sees. And the crazy thing about that
20:02
about Hagar saying this is because she already knew about
20:05
God. Because she was in Abraham's
20:06
camp, she already knew about God.
20:08
But what she didn't know is that God saw her situation.
20:12
What she didn't know is that God knew how she felt.
20:14
What she didn't know that God saw her perspective.
20:18
And he didn't just observe it, but he provided a solution.
20:23
And in the same way, for us, God sees you today.
20:29
He sees your perspective, He sees how you feel.
20:32
He sees what was done to you, and he does not ignore it.
20:36
But he's going to provide a solution for it.
20:39
Why? Because he loves to respond to
20:43
adversity. He will not leave you nor
20:48
forsake you. He hasn't brought you this far
20:54
to abandon you. Some of you sitting here today
20:57
are like, why am I still alive? Because God has more for you if
21:02
he brought you this far. He's not.
21:03
He didn't bring you this far just to leave you to your own
21:05
devices. He didn't bring you this far
21:07
just to abandon you someplace. He has a purpose and a plan for
21:10
your life. He has a calling on your life.
21:14
Don't you understand that? What God puts where God puts his
21:18
spirit. He puts his spirit there for a
21:20
purpose and a plan. Meaning that if you are a
21:22
believer right now, right here, in fact, let me put it this way,
21:25
if you have breath in your lungs right now, God has a purpose and
21:29
a plan for you. You are not a waste of space.
21:32
You are not here just taking up time.
21:34
God has a purpose and a plan for your life if you're breathing
21:37
right now. And so the opportunity of
21:45
adversity is that we get to see more of his character, more of
21:50
who he is, than in in any other time in our lives.
21:56
Our next point is that adversity reaffirms his faithfulness.
22:01
Look with me at verses 5 through 8.
22:10
Get there real fast, it says. Verse five it says.
22:15
And I have also heard. This is God speaking, he says.
22:18
And I have also heard the groaning of the children of
22:21
Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage.
22:24
And I have remembered my covenant.
22:26
Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord.
22:29
I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
22:32
I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you
22:35
with an outstretched arms and with great judgments.
22:38
I will take you as my people, and I will be your God.
22:42
Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brings
22:45
you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
22:47
And I will bring you into a land which I swore to give to
22:50
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a
22:53
heritage. I am the Lord now.
22:59
God here in this moment and these verses is listing off the
23:01
things that He's not only done for them, but things that he's
23:04
going to do for them. And he's, he's really
23:07
demonstrating how he's going to be faithful to the Hebrews
23:10
before they leave Egypt. But we catch up to them, to the
23:17
Hebrews, after they leave Egypt. This is what's written about
23:20
them in Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 34.
23:23
It says, Has any other God dared to take a nation for himself out
23:27
of another nation by the means of trials, miraculous signs,
23:30
wonders, war, a strong hand, a powerful arm, or terrifying
23:34
acts. Yet this is what the Lord your
23:36
God did for you in Egypt, right before your eyes.
23:42
And So what this scripture is talking about is that do not
23:45
forget how God has been faithful to you.
23:48
This is what God has done for you.
23:50
And one of my mentors growing up used to tell me, do not forget
23:54
how God has been faithful to you in your past because it will be
23:57
an anchor for you in your future.
24:00
It will be an anchor for you in your present circumstance.
24:04
And so he told me, write those things down.
24:07
Journal it because you will incur.
24:10
You will experience a season of discouragement.
24:12
At some point in your life, even as a believer, you will
24:14
experience something that has you down.
24:17
And 1 practical way to encourage yourself is to write down how
24:20
has God been faithful to me in the past.
24:23
And I'm not just saying in that moment of adversity, I'm saying
24:26
like, when God does something for you, write it down in a
24:28
journal so that you can go back and read it later and encourage
24:32
yourself and go, wow, if God was faithful back then, he's going
24:36
to be faithful right now. If he came through back then,
24:40
he's going to come through right now.
24:43
That's the benefit of remembering how God has been
24:46
faithful to us in our past. In fact, one commentator said,
24:50
when we are in a low place and it seems that finding God is
24:53
difficult, remembering what he has done for us in the past
24:56
helps us to trust that God will meet us in our present
24:59
circumstances too. And what I love is that in the
25:05
NIV version, and it gives us a little bit more description
25:08
about verse 8. When God is making this promise.
25:12
He says here that God swore with an uplifted hand.
25:18
In other words, God swore by an oath on his own name that he was
25:24
going to fulfill the promise He made to the Hebrews, Hebrews
25:29
chapter 6, verses 17 through 18 says.
25:31
Thus God determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the
25:34
promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed by an oath
25:38
that by two thing, two immutable things in which it is impossible
25:42
for God to lie, that we might have strong consolation who have
25:47
fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope that is set before us.
25:51
Now when we examine Hebrews chapter 6, verses 17 and 18,
25:55
that word consolation actually means a comfort received by a
25:58
person after a loss or disappointment.
26:03
Now for us as believers, the consolation we have are the
26:08
promises of God. They are a strong comfort for us
26:12
in times of loss when we experience disappointment or
26:15
even adversity. And the reason why they are a
26:21
strong consolation for us. The reason why they're an anchor
26:23
for us is because God can't lie. What we see written in this
26:29
book, God will do. What we have here is not just
26:34
ink and paper. It's not just some novel, but
26:37
these are the promises of God. Don't let anyone tell you that
26:41
this all you know discourage you, because this book was
26:43
written by man. Let me tell you, man might have
26:47
held the pencil, but the Spirit told them what to write.
26:50
It came from God. And so if it you find it in this
26:53
book, God is going to do it in your life.
26:57
And that's why, when you and everything may seem like it's
26:59
falling apart, we can still hold on to the promises of God.
27:03
We can still be encouraged. We can still have peace, not
27:06
because of ourselves, but because of what God has promised
27:09
us in His word. In fact, Spurgeon once said that
27:15
it is a strong consolation that can deal with the outward
27:18
trials, not your imaginary afflictions, but in the real
27:22
afflictions and the blustering storms of life.
27:30
Now what I'm saying is that we need to believe what the Word of
27:37
God says, fully believe it. But the problem with fully
27:43
believing something is that there's also that side of you
27:47
that is fearful of whether or not it's trustworthy.
27:53
There's a little bit of fear involved.
27:56
It's kind of like when you're a little kid and you can't really
27:59
swim quite well yet, but you know that when you go to the
28:03
pool, you want to get in the deep end of the pool.
28:05
I don't know if you've ever done this, but I know that when I was
28:07
a kid, I would go to the deep end of the pool and I would, I
28:09
would hold on to the side of the pool and just kind of kick it
28:12
around in the deep end like, oh, this is cool to be here.
28:15
You know, you're not really swimming, but you're just kind
28:17
of hanging on. The promises are of God are
28:22
something that calls us out of that place.
28:25
The promises of God are something that calls us to let
28:28
go of what we're holding on to and trust him out into the
28:32
unknown. Whatever you're holding on to,
28:36
it may be it may be your pride, it may be sin, it may be, you
28:42
know, anxiety about what if God doesn't show up?
28:44
It may be fear, whatever it is. But the promises of God draw us
28:48
out, out of our comfort zone and causes us to trust Him in the
28:53
unknown. It's kind of like Peter, right?
28:59
And in the church, usually we kind of harp on Peter because
29:01
we're like, oh man, you stepped out of the boat but you sank.
29:04
I mean, why'd you sink? Right?
29:07
But I always love to remind people.
29:09
But he's the only one Whoever walked on water, he's the only
29:14
one who walked on water. He's the only one that said
29:17
Jesus, if that's you out there, I'll step out.
29:22
That's what the promises of God are like when we go through the
29:25
storms of life and remember. Remember that scene?
29:28
It was in a storm. While everyone else was freaking
29:31
out and worried about the waves and the wind, Peter was the only
29:35
one that had his eyes on Jesus. He was the only one that thought
29:38
about stepping out of the boat and trusting him in the unknown.
29:42
And when we're holding on to things in our lives, our comfort
29:46
zone, whatever that may be, it keeps us in the boat.
29:50
It keeps us in the boat. If you want to grow in your walk
29:55
with the Lord, if you want to know things about God that
29:57
you've never known before, be willing to let go of your
30:03
comfort zone. Be willing to let go of.
30:08
I don't know how this is going to happen, but I have your
30:11
promises, God, your promises, draw me out.
30:16
Your promises encourage me to go forward, to let go, and to trust
30:19
you in what? I don't know, Hebrews Chapter
30:25
11, verse six says. But without faith it is
30:27
impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must
30:30
believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who
30:33
diligently seek him. It takes faith to believe in the
30:38
promises of God, even when it feels like everything is falling
30:40
apart, even when you feel like you don't understand the
30:43
situation. But when you stand on the
30:47
promises of God, God promises to sustain and to comfort and to
30:51
bring you to where he wants you to be.
30:54
It is the anchor that holds you together when it seems like
30:57
everything is falling apart. And so the opportunity of
31:02
adversity is that we get to see the faithfulness of God Re
31:05
established in our lives. Our final point is that
31:11
adversity also shows us His power.
31:16
Look with me at verses 9 through 13 and it says so Moses spoke
31:22
thus to the children of Israel, but they did not heed Moses
31:25
because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.
31:28
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Go in tell Pharaoh king
31:32
of Egypt to let the children of Israel go out of this land.
31:35
And Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, the children of Israel
31:38
have not heeded me. How then shall Pharaoh heed me?
31:41
For I am of uncircumcised lips. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and
31:46
Aaron and gave them a command for the children, for the
31:49
children of Israel and Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the
31:52
children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
31:58
Now after God had encouraged Moses, he spoke to him and said,
32:02
hey Moses, you can do this. I need you to go back to
32:04
Pharaoh. I need you to go back to the
32:06
children of Israel and to encourage them as well.
32:09
And Moses did. He went back to the children of
32:12
Israel. And he was like, guys, we can do
32:13
this. God is going to lead us out.
32:17
But the children of Israel responded essentially by saying,
32:20
we're not going to trust you anymore.
32:23
We are not going to listen to another word you have to say.
32:25
Because the moment that we trusted you, everything got
32:28
worse for us. Everything got harder for us.
32:31
So why would we pay attention to you now?
32:35
And who can blame them, right? But the problem that we find
32:39
here is that when Moses first showed up, the children of
32:44
Israel were excited about freedom.
32:47
And then things didn't go as they expected.
32:50
Things got harder. And a part of that problem is
32:56
that they had been slaves for so long that they had forgotten who
32:59
they were. They had forgotten that they
33:03
were children of the promise. And because of the time that had
33:08
gone on and because of how hard things have become, they
33:12
struggled to believe the promises of God.
33:17
And what I want to speak to somebody this morning is that
33:21
I'm not in any way trying to make light of how hard your
33:24
situation might be. But how hard your situation is
33:28
doesn't mean that God's promises are null and void.
33:32
It doesn't mean that he's not there with you.
33:35
It doesn't mean that he's not going to show up.
33:37
It doesn't mean that he's not providing that he's not
33:39
sustaining you. He's with you in the midst of
33:42
that. But what the enemy wants to do
33:45
is to use your situation to cause you to forget who you are.
33:49
Oftentimes, we allow our circumstances to define our
33:52
relationship with God. We allow that the set back or
33:56
the trial, the struggle of the failed marriage, to be the thing
33:59
that OK, see, that means that God doesn't exist.
34:01
That means that God doesn't care.
34:02
That means that God doesn't see. And He's not involved in my
34:05
situation, and that is not the truth.
34:11
Now, can I stand here and tell you why something happened or
34:15
didn't happen? Absolutely not.
34:16
I don't know. I don't know why God does some
34:19
of the things that he does. But what I can tell you is that
34:22
he's consistent in his presence, that even in the hardest of
34:26
situations, he will show you his character.
34:29
He will show you that he's walking with you, that he has
34:34
not abandoned you, that he has not forsaken you, that he's not
34:37
looking at you and saying he's definitely not telling you this.
34:41
If you had more faith, then maybe things would be better for
34:46
you. No, no, no, no, no.
34:51
That's not what he's doing. But he's walking with you.
34:57
He's caring for you. And even in the moments, even in
35:02
my own life, where I've turned back and said, Lord, I am so
35:05
sorry for how I complained or how madder was or how whatever
35:11
it is, I'm so sorry. Just like the prodigal child.
35:14
God is always there with open arms.
35:17
And it's usually when I turn around and press into him that I
35:20
start to realize, oh, that's how you were there in that moment.
35:25
That's how you showed up. You've been with me this entire
35:30
time. He promised to never leave you,
35:34
to forsake you. But what the enemy wants you to
35:36
do is to forget that you are a child of the promise.
35:39
He wants you to forget that God has made you more than a
35:43
conqueror, that no matter what comes your way, you are
35:48
victorious. Why?
35:49
Because God has overcome the world.
35:52
Jesus overcame everything. So that means that anyone who
35:54
follows him will also overcome as well.
35:58
We forget in this life, this isn't supposed to be the best
36:02
life. This life is when we're on
36:07
mission. And sometimes God will allow us
36:12
to go through adversity. He will gift us.
36:15
Can I say that He will gift us adversity so that we could be a
36:21
witness to the world of His grace?
36:26
When I was 15 years old, I went through an injury where I I how
36:35
do I explain this? I went through an injury where I
36:39
I, I used to play football and I was a football player and that's
36:42
what I wanted to do. I wanted to play in the NFL, all
36:43
these different things. And one day I went to football
36:48
practice after being on vacation in Florida.
36:50
We came back and you know, the coach, this isn't, this is like
36:54
freshman year of high school. The coach was telling all the
36:56
football players, he was like, all right, you're going to get
36:58
out there and run until I get tired.
37:02
And you know, you naturally, you're like, I'm the one running
37:04
you just standing there blowing a whistle.
37:07
Yeah, I'm going to get tired. You ain't going to get tired.
37:10
And everyone on the field had to run and I was running and I felt
37:14
a pain in my lower back and my legs and I just collapsed on the
37:16
football field. I was going in and out of
37:18
consciousness. They had to call the ambulance
37:21
and all this different stuff. Come to find out I have this
37:23
sickle cell trait which causes your blood cells to twist
37:26
anyway. I want to lose you on the
37:27
jargon. Anyway, what was happening is
37:30
that my my body was shutting down and they had to.
37:32
They had to perform some surgeries on my legs, and I had
37:35
to. I lost the ability to walk for a
37:38
long time, and I had to relearn how to walk.
37:42
I had to relearn how to eat. I had to relearn how to just sit
37:47
up and get dressed again. I had to relearn all of that.
37:52
And in the midst of all of that, I just, I would be so mad at
37:56
God. I would be like, why in the
37:59
world would you let me go through this?
38:03
I didn't do anything to deserve it.
38:04
In my head, I I wasn't out doing bad things.
38:07
I wasn't sleeping around. I wasn't doing drugs.
38:09
I was like, God, I did all this stuff.
38:11
I was a church kid, pastor's kid, like da, da da or whatever
38:13
with the VBS. And you let this happen to me.
38:17
Why? I used to be so mad at him.
38:23
And there were years and years that I had struggles with God.
38:27
Why, why? Why?
38:29
And when I learned in that season is that God does not
38:34
answer that question. And I hope I can save a lot of
38:40
you this morning from asking that question and expecting an
38:43
answer. He doesn't answer that question.
38:46
He will not tell you why. He will just show you who he is.
38:51
That's the only thing that I know.
38:54
I have learned to see that moment because I'm still living
38:58
with things, with that. I still have to get up and I put
39:01
these braces on my feet to help me walk and all this different
39:03
stuff. I have to do that every single
39:05
day. And I have learned and in
39:07
continuing to learn that I have to look at that adversity as a
39:12
gift because it presents an opportunity for me to minister
39:19
for the Lord and it presents an opportunity for His Kingdom
39:24
because he allowed me to go through that.
39:29
That's not easy. And I didn't arrive at that in
39:31
like 2 days or a Bible study or whatever.
39:34
It is years. And there are some days I wake
39:37
up and I still struggle with that.
39:41
But if it wasn't for the adversity that I had faced in
39:43
that time, I wouldn't be equipped to do what I'm doing
39:47
now. One day my body will be whole
39:54
when I step into heaven, and then I'm gonna have a time in my
39:57
life for eternity. Not for like 80 years, 70 years,
40:01
60 years, whatever it is, but forever.
40:04
Do you understand this? Heaven is where the best life is
40:08
supposed to be. So in the middle of where you're
40:10
at right now and the adversity of where you're at, can we
40:13
change the perspective and say I serve a God who can do the
40:16
impossible in my marriage, I serve a God who can do the
40:19
impossible in my finances, in my kids lives, in my own personal
40:23
life, and anything in my situation.
40:25
I serve the God who can do the impossible and whatever he's
40:28
allowing me to face right now, it is not going to defeat me.
40:32
It's just going to be used as a tool for the Kingdom of heaven.
40:38
He's going to use it in my life to to impact somebody else.
40:44
But it means believing his promises, believing that he
40:48
keeps his promises. Don't forget who God has
40:53
promised, what God has promised to you.
40:58
The children of Israel, forgotten had forgotten who God
41:00
had promised, what God promised to them and and who they were.
41:04
In fact, even Moses forgot. Moses struggled to believe that
41:09
God would keep his promise. In fact, when we look at verse
41:11
12, Moses didn't respond in faith to God's encouragement,
41:15
but he chose to focus on his inadequacies.
41:19
He told God this. He said I am of uncircumcised
41:22
lips. In other words, he's saying God,
41:25
I can't do this. I don't have what it takes.
41:31
Now. This isn't the first time that
41:32
Moses used this excuse, because the first time that he used this
41:36
excuse, it was at the burning Bush when God first called him.
41:42
That's when he first said that, said I of uncircumcised lips.
41:47
And God responded by saying, who has made man's mouth, or who
41:52
makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing or the blind Have not I
41:56
the Lord. Now, therefore, go and I will be
42:00
your mouth and teach you what you will say.
42:05
Now in my mind, when I think about this moment, I'm like, OK,
42:07
that should have been it for Moses.
42:08
He should have known. I can't use that excuse anymore
42:11
because God already showed me that he will give me what?
42:13
Everything that I need in that moment.
42:15
That I need to say something. But Moses brought this up again.
42:20
Why I believe he brought this up Because many times when we run
42:26
into adversity, we tend to magnify our negative qualities.
42:30
In an effort to understand why life is so difficult, we tell
42:36
ourselves, I can't do this. Look at how I was raised.
42:39
I can't do this. I don't have the education.
42:41
I can't do this. I don't have the patience.
42:43
Or even worse, we compare ourselves to other people.
42:48
And in this moment, Moses is ready to give up on the mission.
42:53
Not because God didn't equip him for the task, but because he was
42:57
more focused on his ability rather than God's ability.
43:03
And what we have to understand is that if you want God to call
43:06
you to do something, understand that he will call you to do
43:09
something that is always going to be outside of your ability.
43:15
Nobody accomplishes anything great for God by relying on
43:20
their own strength. Nobody.
43:24
God will put you in situations and he will do things in your
43:28
life. So much so that at the end of
43:30
it, the only thing that you will be able to do is the point to
43:32
the ceiling and go, man, that was all the Lord.
43:35
I don't know how I did that. I don't know how that happened.
43:39
I don't know how that came through.
43:44
And as a believer, that should be something that we boast in,
43:46
right? In fact, this is something that
43:48
Paul even knew. He said, Paul wrote this.
43:51
He said, Therefore, I will most gladly.
43:53
I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of
43:56
Christ may rest upon me sometimes.
44:01
Many of us as Christians are always trying to appear like we
44:03
are as strong as can be or as capable as can be.
44:10
And if that's the front that we're putting up at church or
44:13
wherever our workplaces or whatever it is, then whatever
44:16
you're fronting in front of people, that's all that they're
44:20
going to see. In fact, it's actually just a
44:23
facade because all of us are flawed.
44:26
All of us are weak. All of us have issues.
44:30
Yet there's something that Paul understood here, He said.
44:33
I will boast in my infirmities. I will boast in the issues.
44:37
I will boast in the fact that I have flaws.
44:40
Why? Because when God comes through,
44:42
he's the only one that gets the credit.
44:44
He's the only one that can do things outside of your ability.
44:47
He's the only one that can make something that's impossible
44:49
happen. But if we're trusting in our own
44:52
strength, it won't happen. We have to be willing to say,
44:57
God, I am going to depend upon you.
45:00
And again, I'm not just talking about ministry here because some
45:13
of you are looking at situations that seem impossible, whether
45:19
that be in your marriage or in your family or whatever the
45:22
situation that you're facing. But God wants to remind us all
45:27
this morning that what we call impossible God calls light work.
45:32
Yes, it may be hard, it may be difficult, but what God is doing
45:39
by allowing us to see how difficult something is, is to
45:41
show us how much we need him. Because you know what's
45:47
dangerous to the Kingdom of darkness is a believer that is
45:52
fully dependent on God. If we can get to a place where
45:57
we start recognizing that we've got nothing in ourselves and
46:02
that everything that we need is in God, that's when the Kingdom
46:06
of Darkness becomes afraid. Because now you're operating
46:10
from a place of dependency, not a place of self-sufficiency.
46:13
And what our world tells us consistently is that you need to
46:16
be self-sufficient. You need to be the only one.
46:18
You need to be able to walk in a room, you know, chest 1st and be
46:21
like, Oh yeah, I know how to do everything.
46:22
No, no, no, no. What is?
46:25
What does Scripture say? Pride comes before the fall, but
46:30
the humble are upheld by the right hand of God.
46:34
And so when we walk into a room, when you walk into a space, when
46:37
you walk into a situation and you're fully dependent upon the
46:39
Lord, that changes everything. Because now you're saying God, I
46:43
need you for every bit of this. God, I need you in my marriage.
46:46
I, God, I need you in my job. I need you.
46:49
And all of the things that are that are in front of me right
46:51
now, I need you. And when you approach life that
46:54
way, God shows up in a big way. That's when you see the power of
47:01
God, because then you start to see things happen that you
47:05
couldn't have done on your own. Why?
47:09
Because he was the 1 making it happen.
47:11
He was the 1 making it go because we're fully depending
47:17
upon him. That's how we see the power of
47:22
God. It's not by us manipulating
47:24
anything. It's not by us, you know,
47:28
trying, relying heavily on our, you know, religious practices or
47:32
whatever it is, trying to, trying to manipulate God.
47:34
But oh, I prayed for 30 minutes God.
47:35
So that must mean you're going to show up or I've read my Bible
47:38
for 30 minutes God. Does that mean you're going to
47:39
show up? No, no, no, no, no.
47:41
It's just fully depending upon him knowing that he loves you on
47:45
your good days, on your bad days, whether you read your
47:47
Bible, read you did, whether you forgot that morning.
47:49
Whatever it is, he loves you the same.
47:52
He's with you the same. He wants to work in your life
47:55
the same. It's just about depending on him
48:00
to come through and to fill places where you feel
48:04
inadequate. And so the opportunity of
48:08
adversity is that we get to see the power of God demonstrated in
48:11
our lives. In conclusion, while adversity
48:17
isn't fun, it does provide us an opportunity to see God move in
48:22
our lives like never before. It enables us to see more of His
48:26
character, more of his faithfulness, and more of His
48:29
power. But lastly, adversity also
48:35
transforms. Do you remember Moses at the
48:39
beginning when we first started this at the beginning of of
48:42
Exodus 6? Do you remember how afraid he
48:44
was? Do you remember how timid he
48:46
was, how unsure of himself he was?
48:51
Well, as God allowed him to go through adversity, he began to
48:54
change. He saw more of God's character,
48:57
more of his faithfulness and more of his power, so much that
49:01
it transformed him. And proof of this is when we see
49:04
the children of Israel after they left Egypt, they get to the
49:07
Red Sea. And when they get to the Red
49:10
Sea, Pharaoh has a change of heart.
49:14
And he says, we're going to go get them.
49:17
And he mobilizes his army, and they go out to go back, to go
49:20
recapture the Hebrews. And scripture tells us that when
49:24
the children of Israel realized that they were trapped against
49:26
the sea and that they. And when they saw Pharaoh and
49:29
his army coming, everyone panicked.
49:33
Everyone was losing their minds. Everyone was scared.
49:35
And they were, Oh my, I can't believe we came out here.
49:38
I can't believe we believe that Moses.
49:40
We're going to die out here, out here in the desert.
49:42
What is going on? Everyone is panicking in the
49:46
midst of all of this. Moses alone stands up, and he
49:50
says this to the people. He says, do not be afraid, Stand
49:56
still and see the salvation of the Lord which he will
49:59
accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see
50:03
today, you shall see no more forever.
50:09
This is what adversity does to the believer.
50:12
For the believer who trusts in God through the hard times, God
50:16
uses that to craft you into a weapon.
50:19
He uses it to craft you into the man or the woman of God that he
50:22
has called you to be. So, so much so that when
50:25
everyone is freaking out, when everyone is losing their mind,
50:28
when everyone is is falling apart, you are the one that's
50:31
able to stand and say God's going to come through.
50:34
For us, that is the opportunity of adversity.
50:41
Let's pray, Heavenly Father, we come before you.
50:48
And Lord, I will be the first to say, man, I, I, I have so much
50:53
to work on when it comes to responding the right way in
50:57
adversity. But, Lord, I thank you so much
51:00
for your for your word. I thank you so much for being
51:03
with us. Lord, I thank you so much for
51:05
drawing us to you, for speaking to us the things that you wanted
51:07
to speak to us. Lord, we thank You God for
51:09
showing us a new perspective on what adversity is and and how
51:14
you work in the midst of it. God, let us not leave here
51:18
thinking that you are oblivious to our adversity or that you
51:21
don't care, that you ignore us. God help us to leave here
51:24
confident, knowing that our God fights for us, that He sees us,
51:30
that He knows our perspective, He knows how we feel, and that
51:34
you will come through in your timing.
51:41
I want us to understand, whether you're, whether you're in house
51:46
or whether you're listening, you're watching online or
51:48
listening on the radio, that all this starts by entering into a
51:52
relationship with Jesus. That's where all this starts.
51:57
He is the anchor in the midst of the storm.
52:01
He's the one thing that holds you steady when everything is
52:03
falling apart. And again, like I said earlier,
52:07
I'm not saying that following Jesus will make life easier, but
52:12
because he overcame the world, so will anybody who follows him.
52:17
So if you're in house or online, or maybe you're listening on the
52:20
radio, if you want to give your life to Jesus right now, or
52:24
maybe if you want to rededicate your life to the Lord, all I
52:28
want you to do is raise your hand and wave it at me and I'll
52:31
prayer, prayer with you so that you can know him.
52:33
This morning you just raise your hand and wave it at me.
52:42
If you've raised your hand, I want you to pray this prayer out
52:44
loud so that you can hear yourself say you're not praying
52:46
to me. I'm just providing some guidance
52:48
as you pray to the Lord and just say, dear Lord Jesus, I want to
52:52
give my life to you or I want to give my life back to you.
52:59
Forgive me of my sins. I believe in your life.
53:05
Death and resurrection. For me make me new.
53:12
In the name of Jesus, Amen. For those of you that pray, that
53:17
prayer, we want to welcome you to the family of God trying to
53:22
make heaven crowded. Amen.
53:26
But maybe you're here this morning and you already believe
53:30
in the Lord, but you're just going through it.
53:36
Could you be bold and stand to your feet?
53:38
I want to pray over you. If you're just going through,
53:41
you can be bold. Hey, this this ain't about
53:43
anybody else in this room, right?
53:45
And just because I'm standing up here doesn't mean that I'm.
53:47
I'm not going through something. I'm standing with you.
53:50
But it could you be bold in this room and stand.
53:53
And for those of you that are standing, I want to thank you so
53:55
much for your courage. And now, church, we get to be
53:59
the body of Christ and that come around them.
54:01
So if you're around them, would you mind reaching out a hand
54:03
toward them? We're going to pray for them.
54:06
I'm going to pray over you because my hands are raised too.
54:12
Father in heaven. You know the details that we
54:16
will never know. And yet we choose to trust you
54:20
in this place. We choose to believe that the
54:24
God who sent his Son over 2000 years ago did not ignore us in
54:30
our adversity. This does not.
54:33
He's not oblivious, but he's with us right here, right now.
54:37
God, would you show those who have courageously stood in this
54:40
place? Would you show them today that
54:43
you are with them? Would you show them that they
54:45
have a community of people who love them as well?
54:48
Or would you show them that as they leave here today, Lord, you
54:51
are going to provide the solution?
54:53
You are going to provide a way. You are going to come through,
54:56
Lord. And until you do, you're going
54:58
to walk with us. You're going to walk with them,
55:01
and you're going to show us things we've never seen before.
55:04
You're going to use this season to draw us closer to you than
55:06
ever before. But God, would you fill them
55:09
with strength? Would you fill them with grace?
55:11
Would you fill them with power? Would your presence be with them
55:14
like never before? In the name of Jesus, Amen.
55:19
We pray that you've been encouraged by this Bible study
55:22
delivered live from the sanctuary of Calvary Church.
55:25
For prayer. Call us at 87730 Grace.
55:29
That's 877-304-7223. To listen to this message in its
55:36
integrity or to join us for our live stream services, visit us
55:40
online at Calvary, Co dot Church or download our free Calvary
55:45
Church app, Be Blessed as You Worship Jesus this week.